


Run the Streets Red

by psynapple



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-06
Updated: 2013-08-06
Packaged: 2017-12-22 14:57:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/914560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psynapple/pseuds/psynapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A truce is made and a pact sealed. The Starbucks burns to the ground, engulfed in flames that are ignited by a lazy flick of a hand and fueled by a raw, primal energy.</p>
<p>It’s not love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run the Streets Red

It’s not love.

It’s not even camaraderie, really, this alliance of theirs. The tenuous blood-and-sulphur pact they have is as insubstantial as smoke, and just as likely to dissipate when the wind changes. It’s thinly rooted in a common understanding and a wary respect for the rich history that the other represents, but neither is under any delusion of durability.

They find each other through talk, through underground whispers and word of mouth: friends of friends of enemies, spitting vicious rumors of freak wildfires and rural massacres and old magic. Talk, not of a revolution, but of a reclamation. 

They first meet in a Starbucks. Kali cradles a steaming cup of tea with both hands and sits with her legs crossed at the knee; she leaves remnants of dark red lipstick pressed into the cardboard rim of her cup. Abaddon saunters in, thumbs in pockets, head tilted back so she can look down her nose at anyone who dares speak to her. Kali dares because she arrived first; she will always take precedence over newcomers.

Abaddon was absent for the apocalypse-that-wasn’t. She arrived in 2013 to find her king dead and an upstart wearing his crown, her own position rendered archaic by a new order. It angers her. Every move she makes now is calculated to further her eventual ascension to the throne. Who, after all, could do it better than she? She didn’t get to where she was by being good at _sales_ ; she was a warrior. She tore her way to the top and Lucifer himself recognized her ability, and rewarded her for it. 

Kali, though, was there. Fighting the irrepressible steamroller of Western arrogance as it lay false claim to the world's end exhausted her. It is tiring even now as she witnesses the mundanity of everyday life and longs for the time before her influence was warped by encroaching mythology. Back then she was a protector and a mother to those who worshipped her, an all-consuming obliterator of impurity. Back then consorting with a demon would have been unthinkable. Now, she is weary.

The two speak of betrayal, of short and insignificant men who wronged them, of demons and angels who reached too far and not far enough. Plans are made–not for annihilation, but for renewal. Two worlds must burn and then be cleansed and born again. Hell and Earth belong rightfully to old blood, yes, but old blood is bored by the petty antics of those whom it would rule over. What is desired is nothing more than what is owed: reverence, obedience, power. These will be restored only through an extensive regeneration–but first, destruction.

A truce is made and a pact sealed. The Starbucks burns to the ground, engulfed in flames that are ignited by a lazy flick of a hand and fueled by a raw, primal energy. 

It’s not love.

Time illustrates the disparity between them. Kali uses cold shoulders and cocked eyebrows to serve the place of words; Abaddon drawls her way through confrontation. Kali purposefully keeps aloof and untouchable; Abaddon purrs and bats her eyelashes in invitation. Abaddon dresses in blacks and grey metallics; Kali wears warm colors, accentuated by gold. 

But sometimes they are not so different. Abaddon loves the feeling of a skirt swishing as she rotates on her heels to throw a man against a wall. So does Kali. Kali picks every crisp word precisely and has a flair for the dramatic. So does Abaddon. They are both passion in a tightly wrapped package. They both have bloodlust for marrow, steel for a spine, and vengeance on the brain. Something congruent thrums deep within their laughably human hearts.

It’s not love.

They have a car. It’s a deep burgundy color with cream leather seats. Fuzzy dice hang from the rearview mirror. They take it to bars, where Abaddon plays pool and Kali orders drinks with chocolate in them. They take it to retail outlets, where Abaddon wraps phantom fingers around the store clerk’s throat so Kali can stand on the pile of smoking splinters that was once a dressing room and try on a cocktail dress. They take it to suburbia, where Abaddon creates more foot soldiers for her ever-growing legion and Kali takes the leftovers as her rightful sacrifice. Then the two of them kick away the corpses, curl up on the couch, and watch _Project Runway_.

At night, they fuck. It’s a study in contrasts. Kali runs hot and sweaty, perspiration sliding down her chest and collecting wetly in the crevices between her thighs and belly, her hair moist and clinging to her skin. Abaddon is cooler, almost frigid, and she delights in making Kali shiver. They take turns drawing out screams, using tongues and fingers and toys to stoke violent orgasms that leave trembling, sticky thighs and shuddering gasps in their wake. Kali runs her nails over the stitches in Abaddon’s neck and over the burns left by holy oil that twist the side of her face. Abaddon returns the favor by licking a stripe down Kali’s shoulder blades, where the ghosts of her other arms twitch under the attention.

It’s not love.

It’s Kali snarling as Abaddon tells her to _turn up the heat, baby_ , when they run into a member of Crowley’s crumbling regime. It’s Abaddon drawing blood as she bites down on Kali’s shoulder, thrusting up off a millionaire’s silken sheets as the man himself lies broken on the floor. It’s the two of them jostling shoulders and baring teeth. It’s sunsets and chipped nail polish and crowns of entrails and dusky highways. It’s sparking wires and swinging hips and cherry cola and winged eyeliner. It’s a new strain of scarlet fever.

It’s not love, and it will end as they stand hand-in-hand, watching smoking wreckage give rise to the fresh smell of rot and char: the smell of a new beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> title from Ludo's _Streetlights_  
>  ~~crossposted on my[tumblr](www.variouslygarnished.tumblr.com)~~


End file.
